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Rest In Peace, Sydney Poitier
Sydney Poitier has passed away at the age of 94. A great actor who had the ability to be a commanding presence on the big screen.
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Published in Entertainment
His and Rod Steiger’s performances in In the Heat of the Night were electric.
(He and Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones weren’t bad either.)
A wonderful man. RIP.
I remember him most for the wonderful western comedy, Buck and the Preacher, with (of all, people Harry Belafonte). It was so out of character for both.
Poitier also did a pretty good job with James Garner in Duel at Diablo.
Great actor. I don’t know anything about his personal life, but i don’t recall hearing any negatives as would with most in Hollywood. Lived to a nice age. Eternal Rest In Peace.
From about 1957 through 1972, Poitier practically was Black America as far as Hollywood was concerned. He was a role model in the rapidly fading age of role models. Sammy Davis Jr. was roughly the same age and had a parallel pioneering career, but Davis was funny and sharp about race; Poitier aimed at solemn and preacher-y. By the early Seventies, in a radicalized culture like today’s, ironically, both men were considered Uncle Toms. Neither of them took part in the Blaxploitation era.
Peter Bogdanovich also just died. He was twelve years younger than Poitier, with a shorter career, but one thing they had in common: Both of them were “big” in their early work, but didn’t do much of interest in the past 40 years.
I feel more and more like Thomas Sowell who blames everything on the radicalism of the 1960s. It’s not super common for black-Americans to feel nostalgic for the 1950s for entirely understandable reasons. But something is very wrong if Sidney Poitier and Joe Louis were considered Uncle Toms.
“They call me Mister Tibbs!”
One of my favorite lines in film.
And To Sir With Love is one of my favorite films. That and the little – noted The Bedford Incident
And some day, when I grow up, I want to wear a tuxedo like Sidney Poitier. From a style article about how to properly wear black tie…
I hate to quibble with someone so knowledgeable about the movie biz, but I gotta stick up a bit for Bogdanovich. It’s true his filmmaking was largely MIA after early successes, which I assume is what you meant, but he did not disappear and did continue on as a very knowledgeable historian and critic (if those are the right terms). There’s some stuff featuring him on YouTube that’s worth watching.
Singer Abbey Lincoln was excellent in that film! The first night of the projectionist phase of my worklife, in April 1974, I was at the Melba, a second-run theater in the Bronx. The theater owner was an elderly man with a thick Yiddish accent who recorded the outgoing phone message each week. In his slow, labored voice he intoned, “Starting Wednesday. The year’s most unexpected love story. “For Love of Ivy”. Starring Sidney Poitier…and Abe Lincoln.”
It’s pretty much forgotten, but Shoot To Kill (with Kirstie Alley!) is a really entertaining action film.
Poitier also directed several films, including a “trilogy” with Cosby starting with Uptown Saturday Night.
I find the Uncle Tom beliefs rather tedious. I look at acting ability, and I have a low bar, or perhaps it is a high bar, in that spending part of afternoon, enjoying a few beers with someone like Sydney Poitier would be an afternoon well spent.
I’ll take Hoyacon’s medicine with a smile! You’re right, I was referring to Bogdanovich’s career as a mainstream, big time film director. He did other valuable things in film writing, and he was instrumental (along with Leonard Maltin, Alexander Walker, and Todd McCarthy) in getting people from the late Sixties onwards to promote movie history while many of the oldest practitioners were still alive. In retrospect, I’d re-phrase “didn’t do much of interest”.
Though I stick to the idea that, considering how strong his moviemaking career started, it tapered off surprisingly early.
Similarly with Poitier, I’m not denying he had some great moments on screen later on. He kept working, and as was pointed out, became a pretty good director. All I meant to say was after the mid-Seventies or thereabouts–say, 45 or so years ago–he was a famous figure, but in his heyday he was routinely expected to be, in effect, Will Smith, Denzel, and Sam Jackson put together.
Let me post a clip from that movie – the famous return slap. It’s about 2 minutes long.
One of the most memorable lines:
“They call me [beat] … : ‘Mr. Tibbs'”
One of all time greatest lines in all moviedom.
They call me…. Mr Tibbs.
“Fire!”
Father’s will really put up with anything for their kids.
Worth noting.
My two favorites . . .
The Defiant Ones is, I think, terribly underrated.
“I got the motive which is money and the body which is dead!”
Not a bad line either…
Watching that tonight.
It’s awful. It’s a one-line movie.